How good is ancestry.com? I have a ton of info about both sides of my family and have always wanted to dig deeper. Is it worth the money?
If you know you'll have a block of time to focus on it, you can just pay for a month to so and get all the details. Once you have people in your tree you can access them after the paid time lapses--you just can't access any documentation.
I filled in my tree to the 1600s for some branches. Everything now calls for the international price, so I'm gonna hold off on that until I know I'll have time and energy to deal.
My dad did the Nat. Geo. DNA test, where they trace your DNA out of Africa. Finns have a weird path.
One of my friends has six kids. The first three were born while she was still in grad school. I have no idea how she did it.
I am amazed that I seem to have no relatives that have spent time in jail.
One of my relatives was the first person in New Jersey convicted under Prohibition. It was later overturned, in a ruling that pretty obviously resulted from someone being paid off. He also testified in the Lindbergh baby trial, and as far as I can tell, lied under oath.
One of my relatives was the first person in New Jersey convicted under Prohibition.
My grandfather sold booze to smugglers in St. Pierre during Prohibition.
My mom is one of those "oops" babies, with siblings 17 and 16 years older; some people may have thought that about her. But my grandmother started young and had her at 38, so hardly an amazing late conception or anything. The timing probably works out to when my aunt and uncle would have first been out from underfoot and over at friends' places a lot of the time.
I have an ancestor who was tried for murder (after a street jostling that resulted in swordplay) at the Old Bailey in 1723. He was convicted of manslaughter and branded in the hand. [link]
My mom is thirteen years younger than her older sister, who apparently was deeply embarrassed by the potential for people mistaking the relationship.
Most of what I know about my ancestors is that they were pretty good at avoiding paperwork and official records, and when they do appear they were cavalier about how they spelled their names, or in some cases what names they used. It's a trial to my mother and her genealogical research. That said, I think it was ancestry.com that put her in touch with some sort of cousin in Australia who had a photograph of my great grandmother Benedetta, which is nifty.
My ancestors on one side came from Ireland with a long stop in New Brunswick, CA, and did not exactly enter the U.S. legally.
On the German side, my great-great-great grandmother was shipwrecked twice on the way to her final destination. Her diary is infamous in our family for the line "all of my best children are dead."
